I posted a thread in the summer of last year arguing that the change from Hamrlik/Wisniewski to Markov/Gorges would weaken the team, and the vast majority of posters said I was wrong.

It was a huge difference. Losing Hamrlik was the equivalent of a baseball team losing their ace pitcher.

I really liked Hamrlik and Wiz and probably would've agreed with you that their departure would take us down a peg. But all the way to the bottom? And remember - we gained Eric Cole and benefited from a coming-out year for Pacioretty. No matter how you slice it, there was no logical way to predict we'd implode so completely and end up in the bottom three.

Which is exactly why there will be no logical reason for next year's radical turnaround. My prediction is we'll float back up to where we should be - anywhere from 9th to 7th - taking us nowhere near a tank. That's a good thing, because no team wants to engender a culture of losing -- that state of mind can sink into the fabric and be hard to remove. We want to start climbing back up next year, just as long as we're doing it carefully and slowly. We need to become more informed when it comes to trades, more patient when it comes to prospects, and less addicted to instant gratification when it comes to signing free agents. Not coincidentally, those three things are determined by the guy in the GM's seat.